Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Anonymous on November 01, 2005, 09:14:00 PM
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As I sit here reflecting on the past year and on all that I have learned, I find myself disheartened and basically bummed out.
I remember when I learned that Elizabeth Smart had been abducted from her bed and how unsettling that was. I followed that story on a daily basis, as I did the story of Polly Klass in California. She was taken from her bedroom when two friends were there during a sleepover.
Those two girls had very different outcomes. One was killed by her abductor and the other was spared because a consciencious police officer looked into Elizabeth's eyes, though her face was covered, and decided to investigate further. Even when she denied being Elizabeth Smart, he kept her there until her father arrived. It was her and she is back home, safe and sound.
I remember how helpless I felt, how horrible I thought it was that men would enter children's bedrooms to abduct them.
And then I learned something that would rock my world. Children and teenagers all over the country were being abducted from their beds in the middle of the night. The difference was that these children and teens were abducted at the direction of their parents.
Can you just imagine being in junior high school, or in high school, and to find a strange man in your bedroom in the middle of the night telling you to get up and to get dressed, you were going with him. And you knew you had to because you were warned if you did not you would be handcuffed, or worse, pepper sprayed. You saw the cuffs, you knew he was serious. You had no choice but to go.
Then, you get in the car and you are handed a note. You open it and there's a letter from mom and dad telling you that this is hurting them more than you, but that they feel they need to send you away to get help. That they are doing it because it is for your own good, because they love you.
I'm sorry. I just don't see the love in that scenario. And if anyone tells me it does not go down that way, then fine, but I know differently. I have heard it plenty from not only parents who have sent their kids, but from kids themselves. I've even called the "escort" companies and been told they do this.
I find this very disturbing and I believe that if more people were aware of these abductions they too would be disturbed and that perhaps we could get some attention.
It's just a thought.
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On 2005-11-01 18:14:00, Anonymous wrote:
I find this very disturbing and I believe that if more people were aware of these abductions they too would be disturbed and that perhaps we could get some attention.
:nworthy:
Thank you for not joining in the turning away.
I quite agree. The way it works out now, parents just brag about having sent their kid to private boarding school. Who in their right mind would think to ask if they'd been abducted by thugs in the process? It's just largely unknown. But the more we chatter (as us chattering pigs are so wont to do), and the more this extraordinary story creeps into the mainstream, the more likely that Program parents will meet w/ some well deserved criticizm from their own peers.
It takes a thousand voices to tell just one story.
Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.
Mahatma Gandhi, My Autobigraphy, p. 446
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You're right, it does take a thousand voices to tell the story. I'm one of those voices and I make sure that people hear me loud and clear. There is no excuse that kids are being abducted from their homes. None at all. I can only imagine the damage that does to them emotionally. Especially the ones who have no idea what is going on.
I have talked to a child who this happened to. He told me that now, after the abduction, he has trouble trusting anyone in his life. He is now 21 and was in a program from 16-18. An abusive program in Western Samoa. He has a wonderful girlfriend who comes from a wonderful family. He has absolutely no reason to distrust her, he even admits it to me. But deep inside of him he cannot trust and he pushes her away. He loves her and is very conflicted. We talked at length and he is coming to realize that he needs to trust those who are trustworthy. He trusts me, so that's a good start.
As for his parents, the ones who hired his abductors? He has no relationship with them anymore. He cannot trust them, they have hurt him too many times. Once he returned from the program, he continued to live with them for a year because he believed them that they would have him abducted again if he got out of line or if he contacted any of his friends from his past. They told him age of majority over there was 22 so it was legal. Lie, again. When he realized they were lying he felt like a fool, he said, for believing them, again.
The damage this does is unbelievable. I don't know how parents can think that doing this can be healthy. Parents buy into what they are told. They believe it's the only way to get the child to the program.
I think they should ask themselves this question. If you have to go behind your child's back, hire someone to barge into their rooms while they are sleeping, and to take them to a place hundreds or thousands of miles from home, a place where they won't talk to mom or dad for months on end, parents, how can this be healthy? Oh, some of you won't know about that, that you won't get to talk to your kid for months. I think they spring that on you AFTER they have your kid. And, those of you who are told they can "fix" your kid in three months, and then they keep them for a couple of years, well, I doubt they told you about that either. They get the child in the program and then once they have your child, they conveniently find tons of things wrong with him or her. And of course, the child is manipulative and a liar. Never mind how manipulative it was to have him or her abducted. Some of these kids are not bad, horrible kids as some people would like to think. Most come from homes with problems, homes where something within the family unit has gone wrong. And if parents were to be honest with themselves, often it's not the kid who is at the root of the problems. But it is the kids who pay the very high price tag of being sent away.
Read the many pages on this website to see what kids are saying is happening to them. And believe it, because sadly, it's true.
Parents, please wake up and please see that having children abducted is not the answer. It is only the beginning of a whole host of new problems, ones you certainly won't be able to resolve. But, the ones you have now, the ones that are making you consider sending your child away, many of those problems could be resolved at home with some help. I hold onto the fact that kids need love and respect and with that they will thrive. Without it they will seek comfort in other things. Usually those other things are never in their best interest.
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Sounds like he was in Paradice Cove. Those two words explain it all, to those who know what they mean.
I came into this around april '04, so I too have been aware of this for about a year (and a half) myself.
Theres nothing for me to say that you dont already know, by now, Im sure... not about the programs, the industry, the palpable EVIL of it all, or the varying emotions taht rollercoaster from highs to lows.. hope and joy, to despair and hate.
One thing I can say, is that you shouldn't let those little demons of depression, hatred (no matter how well deserved) get to you. You already proved that youre above apathy and fear by reading, thinking, feeling, and even posting about it.
Everyone has their own demons to fight. Everyone has something that keeps them up at night or troubles their mind during idle moments of the day. And well, for people like the two of us, thinking its hopeless or getting depressed about the situation, and the constant thought that this very moment there are tens of thousands of children in little torture camps around the USA and a handful (that still remain) overseas. But you know what? Feeling hopeless or giving in to depression is what the people running it all want. Its how they break the children, they make them feel powerless and feel hopeless so they give in. And if we do, then they win, because we wont even try to change anything.
You also cant let hatred or anger get the best of you. I did myself for a long time and Im finally realizing that I got to just let it flow through me like the muadib lets fear flow through him... well, if youve seen or read "Dune" youd know what I meant. There was a time that I so passionately wanted a bloody death to everyone even remotly involved in this that Id just as soon snap my fingers and see them turned into hamburger before my eyes, or pull the trigger myself if they were lined up before a wall and I had enough ammunition or enough stamina to beat the butt of a rifle through their temple. But, well, not only is that illegal, thats also playing into their game. Their seminars are just the most distilled version of their manipulation game. You turn up the emotions and the intellect is moved to the back burner.
So what do we do? Well, after I hit my low from thinking and dealing with and trying to help with all this mess, I finally realized I cant let myself be personally hurt or screwed up by this, as selfish as it sounds. I dont mean that im putting myself before that kid in O.P. right now or the kids still awake (or just woken up) for a marathon rap/propheet/seminar/workshop and ignoring them. Im meaning I wont let them hurt someone else or make them give in to all the bullshit and stop trying. If you keep positive and keep moving forwards while still keeping the goal in mind, not focusing on whats been done and giving into the negativity of it, you and everyone else will eventually get the word out, and force everyone whose supposed to be protecting these children to do so, and just maybe get some of those assholes thrown in jail for their crimes against these children, this country, humanity, and whatever divinity exists in this universe.
I realize Im sounding a lot different from my usual self, but its becuase I finally turned my eyes to something spiritual. Hope and love is something that can be in short supply if you absorb yourself in this too much, and everyone needs something to look towards in awe and to feel hopeful in. For me, its the future, and the potential of humanity, and that something is there. You can call it 'nature', or 'God', or 'AhuraMazdah', or the 'Great Noodly One'. I dont care. Im just sick of having a bitter outlook tainted by the worst in humanity, and I think its time to look at whats good in it and pay attention to what some of our more 'primitive', but more cultured ancient socieites might have to say about it. We're all stretching to the same end, trying to reach the same goal, and bathe in the same fountain of hope and joy here. The only problem with Religion to me is the 'middle men' who take what someone who had a moment of insight and enligthement said, stick their fingers in it to make a buck and get some power, and fuck it all up!
When I first found out about all this shit I literally did nothing but sob and stare at what I had found in a near catatonic stupor, but I eventually turned that into a rage. Now, I finally got rid of that rage and that depressed low that came from realizing that I wont see the end of it tomorrow. I realized I had done a lot, I had made a lot of people I had met about this feel better, and that I couldnt just fall into the little trap these people are so damned good at setting.
So dont do that to yourself. Im not saying forget what they've done, but I am saying to focus instead of the end of all this torment and the justice for everyone responsible. Its no matter of if, but it IS a matter of when! What goes up must come down, and the one constant is that everything changes. The day will come when this is over, a memory, a horror story of the system failing and parents giving into fear and the manipulators saying that everyone else is, when a few people take the fall and most likely the bigwigs in this run with their tail between their legs and hide in seclusion, fearing the media and those they harmed.
And you know what? Its going to happen that must sooner becuase of people like you and me, and because of some brave individuals like Ginger there who didnt run from her own past, and gave us a place to talk about all this, and stood up to those stupid lawsuits and threats of various sorts from various assholes, and even the occasional troll speaking afoul of her or her family!
And well, in closing, heres that poem:
I will not fear
Fear is the mindkiller,
Fear is the little death
That brings total Oblivion
I will permit my fear to pass
Over me and through me
And where it has gone
I will turn the inner eye
Nothing will be there
Only I will remain. - Mua'DibJails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former
--Horace Mann
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Wow, Nihil, doesn't sound like your usual posts. I'm glad to see you are coming to grips with some things. I am too. It's taken a while but things are becoming more clear to me. I'm not depressed, I'm not feeling helpless. I'm taking a step back to regroup.
I think that the idea any one of us or any organization is single-handedly going to make things better is a joke. I wish we could but it's just not that simple.
I also think that we all have something to give, those of us who truly care and want this nightmare to stop for the kids. One thing I am convinced that we can do is to be vocal and speak out even in our own communities. There's no reason we can't go to high school principals and ask if we can speak to a group of parents. Why the hell not? And why not ask pastors for a little time on Sunday morning to educate the people who attend their churches. Why not? And why not tell someone about this hideous industry when you're waiting in line at the grocery store? Give them an informational flier that will lead them to do their own research on the internet. j
I think making people aware that this is out there is a very good start. Then, when they see programs on TV they can then remember that they have already heard about this. It will reinforce what you told them, and before you know it, they'll be telling others, and so on. Why the hell not?
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I just wanted say thank you for posting this. I have been reading about all of this lately and it is all very horrible. Survivors like you who are fighting against this evil are heroes.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
-- Plutarch
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I had a few variations on the theme happen to me; one night, my mom knocked on my door and said 'someone wanted to see me'. Since I was already asleep, I had a nasty suspicion who that 'someone' might be. I heard the sounds of a walkie-talkie in the hallway. My mom had the door open and wouldn't let me get dressed with it closed; the cop had to tell her to close the door. So I had to leave with the cop, and he was quite nasty about my attempt to sit in the front seat with him, which I stood my ground and did anyway. He had the gall to ask what radio station I wanted to listen to. He took me to the mental hospital without even questioning me or my mother. I guess cops do as parents command.
Another fun trick my parents played on me was to ask if I wanted to go out to dinner. Since that was a relative rarity, I was very excited to go...and was shocked when, again, they dropped me off at the mental hospital for reasons of their own, which they did not share with me.
I'm writing a book about all this right now. I have columns in several newspapers and published my own historical fiction books, so I have something of a following. Hopefully it's enough to attract attention to the book I've needed to write for years, and maybe we'll finally be able to effect change. I believe it was Nellie Bly, a journalist who faked insanity to be admitted to a mental institution, who exposed those places for what they used to be and brought many changes about. However, I also read that it was difficult for such 'placed' people to keep their sanity on the inside, and so had to be pulled out, which should tell you what institutions really do to people. This is a time in history for another Nellie Bly- maybe not someone placed there on purpose, but someone whose history could tell the tale best.
-nuiloa
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Can I have an advance copy, please? I'll definitely list it either way. But if I read it I can sell it better.
Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
--Anonymous
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Absolutely. I've only begun the preliminary work at this point, but when it's finished, you can have a look. I might even post it on my website. The more people who can access it, the better. We'll see.
-nuiloa
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Cool beans! Thanks
Wicked men obey from fear, good men from love.
--Aristotle
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I was kidnapped out of my room nearly 8 years ago and I still have issues with that today. These programs are not worth it! I unfortunately can say many years from now that I was part of the teen warehousing trend of the 90?s and early 2000?s.
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It's interesting that your sig is 'Drug war POW'; for a college paper I've been studying Scottish POWs in Japanese camps, and it's uncanny how I feel that my experience parallels theirs. I'm sure that would sound insulting to a POW, but I think it makes me more sympathetic to them. Other people will never understand either the plight of the POWs, or our own plight.
-nuiloa
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Please don't underestimate just how much some of us understand, even if we were not in a program ourselves. I, for one, never stepped foot in a program as a "student" (we all know it's a joke to call you students, but that's what they would like us to believe you are.) But I know many kids who have been victims of these programs and just how much damage they have caused, not only to the kids, but to their entire families. The abductions, the lies, the mental reprogramming - all of it.
We're all here talking, listening, and hopefully learning more about the industry and the damage it's caused. I believe it is each of our civil duties to go out and spread the word about what we know and about our personal experiences. Me, well my experience comes from a child I know, a child I love, who was sent to one of these hell-holes. I personally experienced this child being abducted from my home, against my wishes.
I understand what you are saying when people just don't understand. Most don't, but luckily many people here do. I wonder how many people can really feel the pain of a child being taken away from you at the hands of complete strangers, a child you took in as your own, a child you loved when his own parents were not there to love him, yet they were there to make such a horrible decision to have him taken from you and sent to another country. Not knowing where he was and what had happened to him were almost more than we could bear. But we had to bear it because we were not his parents and we didn't have the legal standing that his parents had.
I guess my point is that parents, though I am one myself, have too many rights when it comes to these sorts of things. Parents are not allowed to abuse their children and could go to jail for doing so, yet they can hire a third-party to do so? And they can hire an "escort" service to kidnap kids in the middle of the night from their beds. Parents should not be allowed to get away with this, it's just wrong.
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Here! Here, Anon!
I firmly believe that we can all understand each other, at least enough to come to consensus on some important issues. The trouble is not that the Program or POW camps or wars are so alien to "normal" human experience. It's that they are extreme examples of "normal" power and control techniques based on, mostly involuntary, but very normal social reflexes.
In other words, most people have a huge blind spot wrt their own experience w/ being manipulated and controled in these ways.
Nuiloa, there are a couple of reasons why I use the POW reference. Honestly, the main reason is shock value. It's a reducto absurdium strategy just to get people to talk about the issue. Go ahead, dare me to line out the similarities. There are extremely significant difference, of course. I was forced to wittness and, to some degree, participate in tormenting others in the name of some high holy cause. And I was a conscript. So I was a prisoner and this is a war. It's a war on users of certain unpatentable drugs. And people are dying behind it and being held captive for their dissent. I do not, in any wise, say or even THINK that having been in a program is anywhere close to the horrors of military combat. I'm just trying to make the point that the mechanism is the same, and so are some of the psyche casualties. And, more than that, the people who held us captive (for our own good, of course) are actually sending real live soldiers to kill and die from Bolivia to Afghanistan to the Bronx, all in the name of fighting their high holy war on unauthorized euphorea.
No, I don't mean to insult a war POW or any other soldier. But I do think that my bizarre childhood experience has given me insight into how all that works.
But I didn't come up w/ the comparison all on my own. I read about it from Senator Sam Ervin (of Watergate fame)
Here's a page out of his book making a direct comparison between The Seed and Korean POW camps:
http://thestraights.com/images/seed-Ervin-brainwash.htm (http://thestraights.com/images/seed-Ervin-brainwash.htm)
Here's some context:
http://thestraights.com/people/medical- ... search.htm (http://thestraights.com/people/medical-doctors/medical-research.htm)
God is inconceivable, immortality is unbelievable, but duty is peremptory and absolute.
--George Eliot, author
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Drug war POW
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82
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Good points, Ginger.
I guesss simply put - what these programs are doing to kids is wrong - very wrong - and hopefully people will begin to understand what is truly going on. It will be then, and only then, that things will begin to turn around and children will be protected from these sick bastards.
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Hi Antigen,
Yes, I agree, it's the ways in which they go about things that make me think of POWs. In fact, I think it's more similar than people realize. Being forced to behave a certain way under an uncertain punishment, where people are being brutalized, raped, and murdered around you...starvation, power trips, etc. Seems very similar to me. The POWs also had reactions to coming back to 'peace' as I did. I just felt a kind of cameraderie with them, even if they wouldn't see the parallel.
I also agree that the more people know about these things, the better. Thanks, especially to everyone who hasn't been in the 'homes', for understanding. That's more than I usually get out of people; mostly it's a frustration that no matter how much I tell them, they still seem distant from it, and tell me they'll never understand. I'm sorry for you, who had to have a kid abducted in the night from their home. Other adults offered me shelter as well; I learned very quickly that they could not protect me. However, I have always appreciated the fact that they tried. I'm an adopted child; I could never figure out why my parents took me in only to send me away. It's sort of a pound-dog feeling, I guess. I've never felt so guilty as when I had to return a dog I recently adopted from the pound; it's weird, but the idea of a 'dog group home' kept going through my mind. Funny how those experiences seem to follow us in the strangest of ways.
-nuiloa
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I'm sorry for you, who had to have a kid abducted in the night from their home. Other adults offered me shelter as well; I learned very quickly that they could not protect me. However, I have always appreciated the fact that they tried. I'm an adopted child; I could never figure out why my parents took me in only to send me away. It's sort of a pound-dog feeling, I guess....
-nuiloa"
Nuiloa, thanks. It was a horrible feeling knowing that we had no control. I want you to know that you are not alone. I've heard many kids who were adopted have been sent to these programs, as well as many who were not. I personally know a girl who was adopted who was sent to Dundee Ranch in Costa Rica. The experience was horrible or her, as for many others, and she suffers from the same thing you do - the dog-pound feeling. I am sorry for you both, and all of the other kids who must endure this.
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That's so sad. In a way, I'm glad that I'm not alone; in a way, I'm not. I wish I was, because that would mean that no one else had to deal with all these things.
-nuiloa
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At the place that I went to, about a third of the girls there were adopted (including myself). I always thought it was sort of eerie. One of my big fears growing up was being reabandoned. So that feeling of being reabandoned is one of the biggest things that I took from being sent away for three years. Not only that, but being sent to a brainwashing camp is the ultimate abandonment. It's a rejection of who you are. You're sent there to have your entire personality changed. It took a long time after leaving to accept that I had not failed to change, but that this is my personality and some people appreciate it. (One of the things that was supposed to be a big issue was that I am sarcastic and make jokes all the time. I don't like to be serious very much. I had weeks where I wasn't allowed to talk because of it.)
Somehow I went from adoption to sarcasm.
Nuiloa, if you don't mind my asking, are you Hawaiian? I only ask because I live in Hawaii and your (screen)name is a Hawaiian word.
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Hi,
If you live in Hawai'i, you might have heard that there have been reports going around this week about abuse in a home on O'ahu.
No, I'm not Hawaiian, I'm white. I love Hawaiian culture and the Hawaiian people, I'm for sovereignty, etc. Yes, nuiloa means 'very much'. Where are you from in Hawai'i, if you don't mind my asking?
I agree that it is the feeling of failure that's the worst; that it really isn't that you failed to change but your personality. I've always had this nagging feeling from those days that there's something intrinsically *wrong* with me, and other people can see it, but I can't. It's still hard to get over that feeling.
-nuiloa
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Aloha Youth Academy was shut down a couple of years ago on Oahu. It had ties with a program in Samoa called NEW HOPE ACADEMY which was run by some Utah businessmen with ties to the infamous Steve Cartisano (CHALLENGER)
What's the name of this other program you say has reports of abuse on Oahu?
Thanks!
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On 2005-11-14 12:22:00, The Liger wrote:
At the place that I went to, about a third of the girls there were adopted (including myself). I always thought it was sort of eerie.
There seemed to be a lot of adopted kids in Straight too. Isn't that strange? What do you make of it?Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
--Philosopher, Blaise Pascal
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Hmm....I'm adopted too. Wonder if there is anything to that?
Huh. I just looked at the email I got about it again, and it doesn't actually give out a name. It just says 'the youth correctional facility on O'ahu'.
-nuiloa
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I was adopted (at age 2 months), but no one ever made a big deal of it...until I went to Provo Canyon School! They kept insisting that I address my "issues regarding adoption".
What they fail to realize is that, for a 14 year old girl, who is dealing with adolescense, school, friends, a changing body, ect... not to mention the trauma of being sent to a place like PCS...adoption was the very last thing on my mind.
My parents were always open and honest with me about my adoption (probably the one thing they were honest about). It was never a big thing, I just always accepted them as my parents. Seriously, I already had 2 crazy parents to deal with, I certainly wasn't concerned with the existance of additional parents.
Of course, though, PCS capitalized and exploited this subject for as long as they possibly could.
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The same thing happened to me! I also was adopted at 2 months, and my therapist kept telling me I had to work through 'adoption issues' (because of my anger). Nobody wanted to admit that there might be some reason that I was angry BESIDES adoption, which was only a big deal when I was in my first group home- I kept having weird nightmares that my biological parents were going to kidnap me. I have no idea why.
Since then, I've contacted my parents, sort of. I met my mother's stepfather, who informed me that everyone in the family- EVERYONE- is dying or is dead from muscular dystrophy. My mother and father want nothing to do with me (my father apparently said it was because he's a 'prominent businessman and important member of the church' and if anyone knew the truth it would scandalize him. I think 'member of the church' stands out the most in that comment!) So not only did I already have 2 crazy parents to begin with, I ALSO had 2 crazy parents adopt me. Luckily for me, I'm the only one in the family without MD...but it took about a year and a half of me being absolutely convinced I was dying a horrible death (because I oddly have all the symptoms, but they're apparently unrelated) before I was able to afford the DNA test.
However, I didn't know any of that while I was in the home; I was fine with being adopted aside from that my parents always seemed to make me KNOW that I didn't really belong. When I was 5, she told me if I didn't stop doing whatever it was I was doing, she'd send me back to the adoption agency. Then she picked up the phone and started to dial. That's when I knew we weren't 'family'. That was also about the time she sent me to my first psychiatrist, who was foolish enough to think that children are stupid. I knew exactly what she was trying to get me to do with the Little People she wanted me to play with, so I played with her mind a little bit. People say it's because I was very precocious for a five-year-old child, but I don't think so. Kids are smarter than people give them credit for.
Sorry for the long, tangenting post. My point is, I didn't mind that much that I was adopted except for a few instances. Not until I wound up in the home. An interesting thing to note: if the therapist, during family therapy, even INSINUATED that my parents might have something to do with the way I was acting, they'd walk out in a huff, and I wouldn't see them for a very long time. Makes you wonder just how badly they wanted things to get better, doesn't it?
-nuiloa
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I also noticed there seemed to be a lot of adopted kids and kids sent by their step parents.
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I think that a huge reason parents raising adopted kids and step-kids find it easy to send the kids away is that they don't have that biological tie that parents who gave birth to their own child have. I'm not talking about all adopted parents, there are someone wonderful ones who take kids in and give them love and a home. But, for those who adopted a child for the wrong reasons, or decided it was too much to handle when the child developed a mind and a will of their own, it might be easier for them to make the decision to send the child away.
Of course there are plenty of biological parents sending their children away - it's harding to swallow that for some reason. I can reason away the adopted parent thing and the step-parent thing, but biological parents - well, that makes me even sicker. All of it is sickening, it just makes you wonder how they can sleep at night knowing they have shipped their child away to a place most often they haven't even visited, with strangers. Makes you kind of wonder how they could do that, huh.
And for those who are adopted as an infant, you'd think these parents would develope a strong bond with the child, not the desire to send the child away.
Something I would like to say to all of you who have been sent to programs, adopted or not. Perhaps you weren't the perfect teenager, but who the hell was? Perhaps you had some "issues", but who doesn't? I think the people with the most serious problems are the parents who send their kids away. If they would only stop to think about how their child got to where they are, maybe, if they would really take a look, they could track it back to their lack of proper parenting, their busy lives, and so on.
Kids are not something that should be easily disposable. I know it's a disposable world we live in, but come on! Not kids, please!!
For you who feel you were sent away to change who you are, the very core of you, because the program was all about that, please understand that you don't need to change the core of you. That is what makes you YOU. The programs are wrong, the parents sending kids to the programs are wrong, wrong for thinking they have a right to change a person, to change their personality. I can see that sometimes in life we have behavior that might need some changing, but no one has the right to ask you to change who you are.
Stay true to yourselves, don't give up, and fight for what is right and for what you believe in.
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and ps - I don't promote "behavior modification", please don't misunderstand when I said sometimes we have behavior we need to change. I think at different times in our lives we behave in ways that might not be the best and yes, we can work on ourselves. But by no means do I support sending kids away to find the tools they need to help themselves be the best they can be. Tools can be found very close to home.
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I'm not sure I would've had a good time either way. Neither sets of parents were that interested in me. At least the ones who adopted me gave me love and a home for a while. I think they really thought they were helping me, too. That's the scariest part about it. CS Lewis said the worst thing you can ever do to a person is something you think you're doing for their own good.
-nuiloa
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You know, I think CL Lewis had a good point. Hang in there, and remember that when you have kids, if you don't already, you can make their lives different. I didn't exactly have an easy childhood myself, and one of the things that I did was that I vowed when I had children it would be different. I did not want to repeat the things that I didn't like, and I didn't. I managed to raise two great boys who seem to be well adjusted and very kind and loving. They're normal, don't get me wrong, but we made it through the tough teens with relatively few issues. I count my blessings every single day!
My point is that we don't have to repeat the crappy behavior that was done towards us. I know it's difficult for many girls, and guys, who have been put into the programs. They are made to think that there is something wrong with them and that the main goal is to change who they are. That's just wrong. At this point you can't go back and undo what happened, but you can see to it that history does not repeat itself and that you make the most of your life. And most of all - don't sell yourselves short. You are wonderful people, let yourself be you and if anyone doesn't like it, tough. We can't be liked by everyone in this world.
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I will never have children, but that's good advice for those who do. Part of the problem is that authority is easily abused, especially by those who have been abused themselves. Personally I have a tremendous dislike of children, which doesn't make me exactly popular, but I'm not going to have them just to appear normal to others. However, people who are planning to have children do have it in their power to be better parents than they had themselves.
-nuiloa
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Nuiloa, I read about the youth facility. It's the only juvenile detention center in the state, I believe, and it is located in my home town of Kailua. The ACLU actually went in a while ago and did a report on the place. They interviewed the children and heard a lot of disturbing things. There are a lot of reports of abuse by guards. Boys reported that guards would grab them by the balls and squeeze for punishment. The maximum caapacity is currently being exceeded. This means that some children are sleeping on floors next to toilets. The worst thing that I read was that the ACLU recommended that a female guard be employed for the night shift in the girls' facility to provide a safeguard against any sexual abuse by male guards. They didn't listen and just a few weeks later, a girl was raped by a male guard. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The big problem going on is that the contract between the state and the guards' union gives the guards so much power that the state can hardly do anything about the situation. According to the contract, the union has to approve any prison policy changes. So they can't even require additional training for the guards unless the union agrees to it! Here are some articles for anyone who is interested:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/artic ... 30316.html (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Aug/13/ln/508130316.html)
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/artic ... 10350.html (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Oct/11/ln/FP510110350.html)
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/artic ... ln25a.html (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Mar/31/ln/ln25a.html)
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/artic ... ln18a.html (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Jan/07/ln/ln18a.html)
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/artic ... 10362.html (http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Nov/11/ln/FP511110362.html)
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On 2005-11-14 20:53:00, Antigen wrote:
"
On 2005-11-14 12:22:00, The Liger wrote:
At the place that I went to, about a third of the girls there were adopted (including myself). I always thought it was sort of eerie.
There seemed to be a lot of adopted kids in Straight too. Isn't that strange? What do you make of it?Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
--Philosopher, Blaise Pascal
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I guess I can only look at my own situation. My biological dad is supposed to be some kind of drug addict, so I think my parents kind of flipped out when I was experimenting with drugs. I really think they thought that I was on some downhill path to hell. I don't know about it being easier to send away an adopted kid because you don't have a biological tie to them. I don't think that's true in most cases. I think it's more of a fear of the adopted kid turning out like the biological parents. It would be especially true if the adoptive parents had no idea where their kid came from. You could imagine anything, I guess. I don't think you ever imagine normal people giving up their kids for adoption if you're an adoptive parent. If you're an adoptive parent, you probably wanted kids more than anything, but couldn't have your own, so you probably think that someone would have to a drug addict, insane, or 12 years old to give up a kid for adoption.
I definitely get tired of hearing stuff about how ties to adoptive children are different than ties to biological children. It's just not true.
Oh, another theory I had on why there were so many adopted children is that extremely religious people LOVE to adopt. And since they are extremely religious, they flip out more easily over bad behavior by teenagers. A lot of the adopted girls at my school came from uberreligious homes and had never done drugs or had sex. They were just defiant and had a lot of anger.
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Nuiloa- my parents also freaked out when a therapist suggested that they might share some responsibility for our problems at home...that was the last I saw of her.
Next thing I knew, my mother had sought the advise of one Dr. Richard Schwartz (formerly of Straight), who (after secretly testing my urine for drugs, which came out negative) referred us to Provo Canyon School.
It does give me some closure, though, that my parents do admit that they made a huge mistake in sending me to PCS. My mother also wishes she had known more about Dr. Schwartz, and about this organization he was involved with, Straight. But back then, it just wasn't this easy to obtain information about these people and places.
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That's true; as much as I disliked the Internet to start out with, it's given us a tool in which to expose these places. My mother occasionally has admitted that she finds Northwood 'suspect'.
You're from Kailua? I guess that gives you more proximity than me; I'm on the Big Island. I just got an email back from Cecelia Fong swearing that she was going to do something about it. We'll see. Isn't it interesting how Hawai'i really is as compared to what people think of it?
My parents weren't uberreligious; my dad can't have kids and my mom wanted one. I don't know what it means, that there are a lot of adoptive kids in these places. My younger sister was also adopted, and she never did anything wrong, and never wound up in a home. So I don't think it's necessarily involving adoption at all. When kids don't become what parents want, they have the option to get rid of them...just like taking a dog to the pound.
-nuiloa
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On 2005-11-16 11:46:00, nuiloa wrote:
Part of the problem is that authority is easily abused, especially by those who have been abused themselves.
Actually, I think that one has been debunked along with the myth about elevated wife beating incidents during the Super Bowl.
However, people who are planning to have children do have it in their power to be better parents than they had themselves.
-nuiloa"
In my experience, that's more typical.A celibate clergy is an especially good idea because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
--Carl Sagan, American astronomer and author
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On 2005-11-16 22:17:00, bandit1978 wrote:
Next thing I knew, my mother had sought the advise of one Dr. Richard Schwartz (formerly of Straight), who (after secretly testing my urine for drugs, which came out negative) referred us to Provo Canyon School.
It does give me some closure, though, that my parents do admit that they made a huge mistake in sending me to PCS. My mother also wishes she had known more about Dr. Schwartz, and about this organization he was involved with, Straight. But back then, it just wasn't this easy to obtain information about these people and places.
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Oh my! Bandit, how many other kids were in PC from the Fairfax area? Do you happen to know if a lot of them came from Chantilly or JEB high and which years? I wonder if we could contact some of those people and prove or disprove a tie back to Mel Riddile?
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
--Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor
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Well, frankly, I've always doubted it. I've just heard it a lot (about the abused becoming abusive). However, I was abused, and I can see abusive tendencies within myself, if given the right situation. So I'm not entirely sure what that means.
-nuiloa
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While at PCS, I was the only kid from the DC area (except for one other girl, who was from Bethesda, MD).
Dr. Schwartz developed a reputation for having a disgusting, unprofessional, and cruel bedside manner with children, and many parents quickly came to disregard his advise on family, social, and mental health matters. I don't even think he works in the area anymore.
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On 2005-11-19 09:44:00, nuiloa wrote:
"Well, frankly, I've always doubted it. I've just heard it a lot (about the abused becoming abusive). However, I was abused, and I can see abusive tendencies within myself, if given the right situation. So I'm not entirely sure what that means.
-nuiloa"
Well, that's the thing. We all inherit some baggage from our ancestors along w/ the goodies. When we spot their misakes, we correct them (or die trying). It's when we fail to recognize them as mistakes that we pass them along.You can lead a camel to water but you can't make it stink (any more than it already does)
-- Job
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In a way, that assumption is scary, because all the staff at the homes I lived in could get off scot-free if they used their own abuse as an excuse. Scary.
I prefer to inherit the traits of my ancestors, the Scots- fight for freedom or die trying. :smile:
-nuiloa
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Hey everyone-
A while back I found an article on the Web about a guy who worked as an abductor for a gulag school and he was a convicted child molester. I wrote an article referring to him but I can't find the original anywhere. Can anyone help?
-nuiloa
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On 2005-11-22 08:14:00, nuiloa wrote:
"Hey everyone-
A while back I found an article on the Web about a guy who worked as an abductor for a gulag school and he was a convicted child molester. I wrote an article referring to him but I can't find the original anywhere. Can anyone help?
-nuiloa"
You may be thinking of Rick Strawn:
http://www.nospank.net/labi.htm (http://www.nospank.net/labi.htm)
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Thanks so much; that was exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate it.
-nuiloa